


Echolocation

by pipisafoat



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 13:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21271589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: Practical jokes, unexpected knowledge, and Teal'c using the word 'cute'





	Echolocation

“Jesus Christ!” Carter yelped, jumping backward and crashing into Daniel, who steadied her with hands on her shoulders. “There’s something in there!”

“I believe it is a bat,” Teal’c offered solemnly, but Jack could see the minuscule twitch to his lips. “I did advise you not to leave your tent open.”

“Christ,” she repeated, hand on her chest. “That’s a big fucking bat, Teal’c.”

Daniel released her shoulders to peer into the tent. “I don’t see— FUCK!”

Jack laughed as Daniel’s leap backward sent both him and Carter sprawling. The walls of the tent moved ominously. “Alright, kids, let the bat out and get to bed,” he ordered, struggling to keep a straight face. The tent shook again.

“That’s no bat,” Daniel insisted from the ground. “Way too big.”

“We’re on another planet,” Jack reasoned.

Carter nodded vigorously. “Alien bat. Huge fucking alien bat.”

“Someone’s got a potty mouth tonight.”

Carter glared at him. “Bats are … not my thing.”

“Not your thing?” Daniel asked, finally getting up and offering her a hand.

“Not my thing,” Carter confirmed, allowing Daniel to help her up. “They’re … ugh.”

“I find them to be cute,” Teal’c interjected, and everyone stopped to stare at him.

“Cute,” Jack repeated in disbelief.

Teal’c nodded once.

“Cute. I’ll give you that they’re cute, but you, using the word ‘cute'? That’s just wrong.”

“They’re not cute,” Carter argued. “Daniel, you agree with me, don’t you?”

Wide eyes greeted her plea. “Actually…."

“What’s your beef with bats?” Jack asked, genuinely curious. Jacob hadn’t shared that detail during their planning session.

“Echolocation.”

“Echolocation?”

“It’s creepy,” she said simply. “What if it fails and BAM! A bat flies into my face?”

Oh, god, this was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. No wonder Jacob suggested a bat as a Halloween prank. Jack felt snort after snort of laughter escaping him despite his best efforts. “Well,” he managed to get out, “you have to get the bat out of your tent somehow. Try flapping around in there to chivvy it out.”

“I’ll hold the door open for you,” Daniel offered.

“I hate you all,” Carter announced as she eyed her tent. Jack reached slowly under the blanket on his lap and grasped the controls, wiggling the joystick that flapped the wings. “Oh, god, it’s still alive.”

Jack laughed so hard he choked, but he managed to wave of Teal’c before the larger man could pound on his back. “You’re an Air Force Major, Carter. Surely you can handle a little wildlife.”

“I don’t see you volunteering to get it. Sir.”

He grinned. “Not my tent.”

Daniel made a quiet sound, but it drew everyone’s attention. “Sorry, it’s nothing,” he said quietly. Too quietly.

“Share anyway?” Jack offered. He hated Quiet Daniel. Quiet Daniel was always upset about something.

“This just reminded me of a joke Sha’uri pulled on me about three months into my time on Abydos,” Daniel explained, and yeah, remembering Sha’uri is one thing guaranteed to turn Daniel into Quiet Daniel. “Jack, you remember the lizard they served us during the sandstorm?”

“The one you swore tasted like chicken?” It had tasted nothing like chicken. 

Daniel laughed softly. “Yeah. Well, they bite. When they’re alive. When I found that out, I developed a … healthy aversion to them. Sha’uri thought I was being ridiculous, so she hunted one, put it on a long stick, and enlisted Skaara. She put it on my side of our bed and let me find it one night. Skaara was moving it with the stick, I was screaming, and Sha’uri was laughing. When I asked her to help me get it, her response was ‘Not my side of the bed,’ just like your ‘Not my tent,’ Jack.”

“Colonel….”

Uh-oh. “Yes, Carter?”

“If you have a bat on a stick in there….”

Technicalities. That was his only way out. “I do not have a bat on a stick in your tent,” he promised. Damn Sha’uri. She was going to get him caught, and she’d already made Quiet Daniel sad.

“If you’re somehow doing this….”

He pauses a second just to see if she’ll finish the threat, but soon the glare is enough to provoke speech. “Carter, how would I know you’re afraid of bats to even set up what would be an excellent joke?”

“Do not dolphins also use echolocation?” Teal’c asked suddenly.

“Yes, and they’re creepy, too,” Carter answered emphatically.

“Also porpoises, shrews, a genus of swifts,” Jack added, “and a thing called a tenrec that looks like a hedgehog. All creepy, Carter?”

“All. Fucking. Creepy.” She hesitated and eyed him. “You definitely set this up. How else would you know every animal that uses echolocation off the top of your head?”

Crap. He wasn’t ready for this conversation. “I just do,” he said, surprised to hear a rasp to his voice.

Daniel abandoned the bat tent and came over to Jack, dropped to the ground beside him. “I don’t like Quiet Jack,” he murmured. “Charlie?”

Jack nodded, just once. “His last science fair project was on echolocation,” he choked out. Fuck, it’d been years, and even thinking about the good things hurt. Without thinking, he shoved the blanket off his lap, dropped the bat’s controller, and rose.

“You asshole!” burst out of Carter’s mouth, quickly followed by, “Sorry, sir, I know you’re having a moment, but I can’t believe you sat there and lied to me! That’s from the Halloween supply store, isn’t it?”

He glanced down and shook himself out of his Charlie-funk. “Now, Carter, I never lied,” he explains, holding his hands up. “I don’t have a bat on a stick in your tent.”

“How did you know?”

Jack wondered if it was too late to pretend he hadn’t been able to shake off his sudden depressed mood.

“It was my father, wasn’t it.”

Or he could throw someone else under the bus. “The information came from Jacob, but I think the idea was Selmak’s.”

“I’m going to kill them both!"

**Author's Note:**

> written for fandomweekly's prompt Ghosts with bonus Bat


End file.
